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ACTCFX – NFA registered, but still scamming a trader

Amin El-Hakim is a nice guy and a very good forex trader. He's been scammed many times, and is trying to be much more careful selecting his broker. He found one that was NFA registered, but still got scammed. ACTCFX is registered under NFA # 0232831. This was listed on their website when Amin was looking at them before opening his account, but that info has since been removed from their “About Us” page. Since FPA Investigator Ken has dealt with all of Amin's prior issues, he was assigned to this case.

Amin opened an account with ACTCFX.com (aka AC Trading Co). He did well and made some profits. He withdrew his initial deposit without any problems. He kept trading and made some more money. The he tells the FPA that he tried to make another withdrawal. The withdrawal orders kept disappearing so he kept placing new ones. When he let ACTCFX support know that he was taking screenshots, he tells us that things began to get really strange.

Two trades for 25 lots of GBPJPY opened in Amin's account. He tells us that he didn't open these and ACTCFX didn't even acknowledge any emails from the FPA, so we only have Amin's version to go by. At first, Amin was shocked, but the market moved in the right direction, resulting in over $100,000 of profit from the two trades. The problem was that it was impossible to close the trades or modify them in any way. Amin emailed and got no response. Amin called. One number was invalid, the other didn't connect after a few rings.

The trading agreement that is still on ACTFX's website says...

This Agreement sets forth the terms and conditions governing your Account at Actcfx.com (“Actcfx.com”), daivision of GAIN Capital Group, LLC, and all
Contracts and other transactions in this Account with Actcfx.com. In this Agreement, the undersigned customer is referred to as “Customer” or “ You.”

Amin and Ken wrote to Gain Capital to check on this. Gain's representative wrote back...

Looking further into your issue. Actcfx.com is not an actual partner of ours and we have no relationship with them. It looks like they just copied some information from our own website and then pasted it onto there own. Our compliance department has been informed and will follow up with Actcfx.com about the false information. However since your account was not actually with us, there is unfortunately nothing we can do to help with your issue.

Ken and Amin sent multiple emails to ACTCFX. None were acknowledged. Amin did manage to get them to say hello in live chat, but reports that they stop responding as soon as he mentions his account number. Ken gave a final warning with a deadline of February 22nd, 2010 and it was ignored.

We are shocked that a broker with NFA registration can even try to get away with this behavior. We are further shocked that an NFA broker could get away with posting false links to another broker inside the trading agreement on their website. We encourage Amin to go after this broker with the NFA and CFTC and to report them to all authorities he can.

This case has further confirmed that all brokers are potential scams,no broker should be trusted with huge funds,not even well registered ones.On this issue,i think that the FPA investigation committee should go a step further by alerting NFA for more investigation,we may be surprised at revelations that might follow.

Since they already took their NFA association off of their website, I'll bet they are planning to dump the NFA as quickly as possible. I'll wager that it's only a matter of time before they end up bragging about how they are regulated in Belize or the British Virgin Islands.

Since they already took their NFA association off of their website, I'll bet they are planning to dump the NFA as quickly as possible. I'll wager that it's only a matter of time before they end up bragging about how they are regulated in Belize or the British Virgin Islands.

Where is the CFTC and NFA whom are supposed to be protecting the retail traders???? Just how exactly am I protected by the NFA and CFTC??? It seems they are just out to protect the big players and brokers, sort of like workers compensation or car insurance.

The CFTC wants us to put more money in our accounts by reducing the amount of leverage we can use. It's precisely examples like this that prove that the 10:1 leverage rule will only hurt retail traders, not help them. It will be interesting to see just what the NFA and CFTC do to aid Amin and his money.

If you check this company by their NFA ID# - you will find out that they are a guaranteed IB of RJ OBrien, another broker - and both of them are Notice Broker Dealers. The fact that their trading agreement contains Gain Capital is a serious issue which should be immediately addressed to NFA via their website, at the following page: File a Complaint. But Amin MUST have a confirmation of everything he is complaining about - otherwise NFA most likely will ignore it.

I see that ACTC is registered in NFA but NOT as an FCM broker category (FUTURES COMMISSION MERCHANT), but they are registered as an Introducing Broker (IB) only, so it means they are actually NOT a broker, but ACTC is just an agent or something like that. And it is very danger if you put your money in ACTC directly (it something like you put your money to someone that you don't know him)

ACTC write in their website that they are an NFA broker or may be have a connection with a Gain Capital (in fact, this is not true), I think all of this is just to attract people to trade with ACTC. (because usually people didn't check in what category they are registered in NFA).

As I know that the Real NFA broker (FCM) would not accept a payment like Liberty Reserve and something like that. Because this is called 3rd party transfer, and prohibited in NFA rule.
So I think this is not NFA fault, but this is a scammer that try to lie us.

compare it with NFA Broker that are registered as an FCM in NFA, you would see the different.
FXDD: BASIC Details

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